{"id":880132,"date":"2017-03-13T07:56:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T23:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/?p=880132"},"modified":"2017-03-13T11:55:55","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T03:55:55","slug":"landslide-at-ethiopia-garbage-dump-kills-at-least-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinfo.inquirer.net\/880132\/landslide-at-ethiopia-garbage-dump-kills-at-least-46","title":{"rendered":"Landslide at Ethiopia garbage dump kills at least 46"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An<\/a>

An excavator aids rescue efforts at the scene of a garbage landslide on the outskirts of the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sunday, March 12, 2017. A mountain of trash gave way in a massive garbage dump on the outskirts of Ethiopia’s capital, killing at least 46 people and leaving several dozen missing. AP<\/p><\/div>\n

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia \u2014 At least 46 people died and dozens more were hurt in a giant landslide at Ethiopia’s largest rubbish dump outside Addis Ababa, a tragedy squatters living there blamed on a biogas plant being built nearby.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s landslide flattened dozens of homes of people living in the Koshe dump when part of the largest pile of rubbish collapsed, an AFP journalist said.<\/p>\n

Dagmawit Moges, head of the city communications bureau, said 46 people had died — 32 female and 14 male, including some children.<\/p>\n

Many of the victims were squatters who scavenged for a living in the 30-hectare (74-acre) dump, she said.<\/p>\n

Musa Suleiman Abdulah, who lost his wooden shack topped with plastic sheeting in the disaster, said when it happened, he heard “a big sound”.<\/p>\n

“When we came out, something like a tornado is rushing to us. We started to collect family members” and escape, he said. “People helped. My child and family left before the destruction happened.”<\/p>\n

The streets in the neighborhood below were filled with women sobbing and wailing.<\/p>\n

Bystanders said there were still people trapped under collapsed mounds of rubbish, but police were preventing locals from getting close to the site.<\/p>\n

Just six people were seen digging through the rubbish on Sunday looking for survivors and bodies.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim Mohammed, a day laborer living at the landfill whose house was narrowly spared destruction, said the disaster happened in “three minutes”.<\/p>\n

He estimated that more than 300 people live on the landfill.<\/p>\n

Construction materials, wooden sticks and plastic sheeting could be seen in the wreckage, the AFP journalist said.<\/p>\n

For more than 40 years the Koshe site has been the main garbage dump for Addis Ababa, a rapidly growing city of some four million people.<\/p>\n

According to local residents, some 50 houses with about seven people living in each of them were built on the trash.<\/p>\n

People had built the houses about two to three years ago, said Berhanu Degefe, a rubbish collector who lives at the dump but whose home was not destroyed.<\/p>\n

“Their livelihood depends on the trash. They collect from here and they live here,” Degefe said, referring to the victims and other squatters.<\/p>\n

“This part, all of it went down,” he said, gesturing at a huge chunk of the hill that suddenly slid. “A lot of people died last night.”<\/p>\n

Degefe blamed the collapse on a new biogas plant being constructed on top of the hill.<\/p>\n

The AFP journalist saw bulldozers on top of the hill pushing piles of rubbish around.<\/p>\n

Degefe said they were leveling ground for the plant, increasing pressure on the hillside and causing the collapse.<\/p>\n

Mohammed also blamed the biogas plant \u00a0construction for the tragedy, saying trash had been compressed and the landslide happened “because a lot of garbage is dumped on the top level” and “pressed… down”.<\/p>\n

The journalist also saw cracks in the ground at the top of the hill, suggesting that more of the pile could slide.<\/p>\n

Koshe, whose name means “dirt” in local slang, was closed last year by city authorities who asked people to move to a new dump site outside Addis Ababa.<\/p>\n

But the community there did not want the landfill, and so the garbage collectors moved back.<\/p>\n

Poverty and food insecurity are sensitive issues in Ethiopia, which was hit by a famine in 1984-85 after extreme drought.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the country has been one of Africa’s top-performing economies and a magnet for foreign investment, with growth in near-double digits and huge infrastructure investment.<\/p>\n

Still, nearly 20 million Ethiopians live below the poverty line set by the World Bank.<\/p>\n

Critics have hit out at the government’s economic policies saying they have a limited trickle-down effect from the elite down to the majority of the people. CBB\/rga<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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